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DECISION No.44/1998/QD-TTg OF FEBRUARY 23, 1998 TO APPROVE THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MASTER PLAN FOR THE SOUTHERN KEY AREA IN THE PERIOD FROM NOW TILL THE YEAR 2010

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the Law on Organization of the Government of September 30, 1992;

At the proposal of the Chairman of the State Council for Evaluation of Investment Projects in Official Dispatch No. 315/HDTD of January 16, 1998,

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To approve the master plan on the socio-economic development of the southern key economic area including the provinces of Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Ba Ria - Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh city in the period from now till the year 2010 with the following contents:

1. MAJOR DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES:

1. To build the southern key economic area into one of the fast-growing economic areas attaining an economic growth rate higher than elsewhere nationwide.

2. To strive to achieve a GDP growth rate of from 13.5% to 14.5% in the period from now to the year 2010, to take the lead in a number of important domains, to create a driving force for the development process in the southern region and contribute to promoting the national economy.

3. To restructure the area and the whole southern region along the direction of industrialization and modernization.

4. To complete and modernize for the first step the infrastructure system in a comprehensive manner.

5. To basically settle the question of employment for the working-age people.

6. The socio-economic development must be coupled with the protection and improvement of the ecological environment, particularly in the rational exploitation and use of resources, in the use of land and in the process of urbanization and industrialization.

7. The economic development must be closely linked to the enhancement of the capacity to maintain security and defense. To attach importance to key defense positions and strategic logistic bases in the area and the whole southern region. To firmly maintain the sovereignty over the region's land, sea and space of very important strategic significance to the whole country.

II. MAJOR DEVELOPMENT TASKS:

1. Regarding industry

- The industrial sector must play the key role, creating a driving force for the socio-economic development of the southern key economic area, to strive to increase the industrial growth rate so as to achieve a ratio of 49.0% and 50.4% of the area's GDP by 2000 and 2010 respectively.

- To develop clean and high-tech industries in Ho Chi Minh city; to form industrial parks in Ho Chi Minh city and Binh Duong through Bien Hoa along Highway 51 to Ba Ria - Vung Tau, which all form a network of industrial parks. To develop the key and spearhead industries (such as oil and gas exploitation and processing, electric energy, mechanical manufacture, steel rolling, information technology, basic chemicals and materials, etc. as the basis for the industrialization of various national economic sectors) together with the consumer goods industry so as to meet the domestic and export demands.

2. Regarding trade, services and tourism:

- To develop trade and service to a level on a par with the role and position of the area in the relationship with the southern region, the whole country and the world, to strive to achieve the average trade and service growth rate of from 13% to 15% in the period from now to the year 2010; to establish a network of trade centers including a number of centers and department stores of the regional countries' standards.

- To diversify and raise the quality and effectiveness of various forms of tourism; to open appropriate tourist lines to attract tourists, to build comprehensive material and technical bases and infrastructure to assure the lodging needs of Vietnamese and foreign tourists.

- To diversify forms of financing, banking, telecommunications and port services... in service of production and daily life.

3. Regarding agriculture, forestry and fishery:

- Regarding agriculture: To step by step exploit waste land for agricultural production. To step up intensive farming and expand specialized farming on suitable soil so as to increase the quantity of commercial products. To apply new scientific, technical and technological advances as well as appropriate policies and measures to boost production. And at the same time to prepare plans and measures to prevent and combat natural disasters, storms and floods.

- To develop forestry, to regreen waste land and bare hills (mostly in Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Dong Nai); to quickly expand and soon stabilize coastal protective forests, especially the areas of submerged forests in Can Gio district of Ho Chi Minh city and along the coastline of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, to attach importance to forests that serve as a source of materials for the paper industry, to national forests and Tri An headwater forests.

- To develop the exploitation, culture, processing of aquatic and marine resources and their marketing services among the people. To raise the sea fishing capacity, promote offshore fishing and apply new scientific, technical and technological advances to production. To make in-depth investments in upgrading service establishments for the development of fishery. To encourage all economic sectors to invest in promoting the development of the aquatic resource branch.

4. Infrastructure development:

- To complete and start to modernize the infrastructure system is a priority task that needs to be performed one step ahead. To quickly build key communications routes including national highway 51, national highway 13, national highway 22 and the trans-Asian ways, to quickly improve the urban traffic, upgrade Tan Son Nhat airport (also taking into account the construction of a new international airport for the whole region after Tan Son Nhat airport is over-loaded).

- To quickly upgrade the Sai Gon port cluster, upgrade and build new Thi Vai port cluster, Sao Mai-Ben Dinh port and the existing river ports.

- To renovate the railway junction in Ho Chi Minh city, to build railway lines from Ho Chi Minh city to Vung Tau, Phnom Penh, western south Vietnam and the Central Highlands.

- To upgrade and build a new power grid network compatible to the power supply capacity so as to meet the production demand and serve the people's daily life.

- To modernize the information and communication network and expand the networks of mobile telephone, data transmission, coastal post and information, to expand the radio and television coverage all over the area.

- To renovate, upgrade and build water supply and drainage systems in big cities and industrial parks to ensure the demand of clean water for production, business and people's daily life, to improve the living conditions and the environmental sanitation in urban and rural areas.

5. Cultural, health and social development:

- To develop and raise the quality and effectiveness of the educational and training system so as to raise the people's intellectual level, and supply adequate human resources for the regional and national industrialization and modernization. To eradicate illiteracy and universalize primary education among school-age children by the year 2000 and universalize junior high school education among the population by the year 2005.

- To develop the network of primary health care and medical examination and treatment for the people, to invest in upgrading existing hospitals and improve the quality of services. To build in the immediate future medical centers for foreigners in Ho Chi Minh city and Vung Tau.

- To attract capital from various sourcesand investment in many forms for the scientific and technological development in the region. To develop forms of research and application of scientific, technical and technological advances. To strongly develop the system of centers for research and experimentation as well as the agricultural, industrial, forestry and fishery promotion demonstration in the area.

III. MAJOR SOLUTIONS:

1. On the basis of the principal contents of the approved master plan, the provinces and cities in the southern key economic area shall have to concretize the socio-economic orientations and tasks of the master plan into their long-term, medium-term and short-term plans and into specific programs and investment projects. At the same time they must adjust the approved socio-economic master plans of their own to make them conform to this master plan.

2. The solutions with respect to sources of capital, human resources, science, technologies and markets must be concretized into mechanisms and policies suited to the conditions of each province or city. Such solutions must be comprehensive and capable of mobilizing all resources inside and outside the country in service of the socio-economic development of the southern key economic area.

3. On the basis of the general development objectives and orientations of the southern key economic area and the development tasks of various economic sectors therein, the provinces and cities in the area should review the list of programs and investment projects so as to arrange them in a more rational priority order. In the course of implementation, they should regularly supervise and make timely adjustments thereto with a view to ensuring the efficient investment with different sources of capital.

Article 2.- The presidents of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities in the southern key economic area shall have to closely supervise and monitor the implementation of this master plan through five-year and annual plans, programs and investment projects in accordance with the area's master plan.

The ministries and branches at the central level shall have to coordinate with and support the provinces and cities in the southern key economic area in the process of formulating and carrying out programs and investment projects so as to ensure the conformity between the socio-economic development master plan of each province or city and the socio-economic development master plan of the southern key economic area and the national master plan.

Article 3.- This Decision takes effect 15 days after its signing. The ministers, the heads of the ministerial-level agencies and agencies attached to the Government, the presidents of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities in the southern key economic area shall have to implement this Decision.

The Prime Minister

PHAN VAN KHAI